<p>This study examines the effects of the United States withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically clean energy goals, and Climate Action goals, focusing on renewable energy consumption and environmental innovation. The annual data of United States as a treatment group and China as a control group is collected from 2014 to 2021. A difference-in-differences (DID) approach is used to evaluate the causal effects caused by the policy withdrawal, combined with event-study specifications and robustness tests. The empirical results indicate that renewable energy consumption in the United States significantly increased after the withdrawal. Which suggest that sub-national governance structures, market forces, and existing investment commitments continued to support clean energy deployment despite the federal policy reversal. On the other hand, environmental patenting has no statistically significant short-term effect. This suggests that green innovation reacts more slowly to policy uncertainty since research and development cycles are longer and companies take longer to change their strategies. The findings show that once countries stop working together on policies, there is a big difference between short-term behavioral changes and long-term innovation outcomes. From the policy perspective, decentralized institutions and market processes may help with short-term adoption of renewable energy. However, long-term climate agreements that are consistent and trustworthy are necessary to encourage environmental innovation.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>